Ha, I should take offense for the Shaun Hannity thing. OK. At this point, I do completely agree with the point about the money tree. I think for an American market it is necessary. But the big issue for me is that you can play an incredible game and eliminate 99 people, and yet, the mob member will earn more money if you miss than if you quit. I did make a mistake with my math originally. I lumped the one hot seat player out from the 100 other people.
I know it's a peevish thing, but the scoring is just bugging the hell out of me. It seems like the $3,000,000 is just there for show. Obviously, I know it is to get a lot more viewers out of it, but what great drama is there for, in this format, gambling $50,000 to win $3,000,000? Even if you could stop with $500K, the jump from $500,000 to $3,000,000 is a bit much.
I just think they are messing with the key elements that made this game enjoyable in the Dutch format. Having the "mob" heckle the hot seat player is just like adding the live audience to Weakest Link for me. It's turning a hard quiz show into a comedy show. I wouldn't bitch about this game as much if there was a tiny bit of originality. But as it is right now, it's Millionaire with the audience members playing. I much prefer the first money chain format, where each escape lowered the top prize, than this one. It at least gave some logical reason for the $3,000,000: odds are it was going to tumble drastically. Here, it seems tacked on for the hell of it.
Edit: After re-reading my thing, I kinda forgot about the 1 remaining mob member in the first paragraphi situation when 99 people are eliminated. That does mean that the mob member played an incredible game also and deserves the money as much as the hot seat contestant, but the giant difference from the hot seat's $50,000 and the mob's $500,000 is my issue in that scenario.